When freedom is at stake, you fight and you vote

My mother taught me that when anyone's freedom is at stake, so is mine. Her fighting spirit is with me as I wait for today's U.S. election results. I hear her whisper: May love banish fear.

In 1972 I attended my first political rally in Levittown, New York. I was twelve years old and my mother had a firm grip on my hand as she led me through the crowd of people holding up signs against the Vietnam War and in support of Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern. This was the mother who had sent me to school at age nine with a black armband in silent protest of the Vietnam War.

My mother took two signs from a volunteer and handed one to me with a wide smile. She was in her element. Well into her 80s, she loved nothing more than a protest march, holding aloft a sign with slogans announcing her allegiance to progressive liberal causes, particularly her strong anti-war stance. She loved McGovern because of his outspoken criticism of the Vietnam War. On November 7, 1972, when incumbent Republican President Richard Nixon defeated McGovern in a landslide victory, I cried right alongside her, watching the results on our grainy color television set.

Freda and Amy, my sixth grade graduation, age 12, and the beginning of my education in what it means to be politically active.

My mother made certain I was registered to vote as soon as I turned eighteen, and in 1980 I voted in my first presidential election for incumbent President Jimmy Carter. Once again, I had to watch our candidate lose, this time in a landslide victory to then California Governor Ronald Reagan. And once more, we mourned our loss but quickly picked ourselves up again, our fighting spirit renewed for the next election. There would be a long wait, until Democrat Bill Clinton won the White House in 1992.

There was no containing Mom’s joy when Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008. For that campaign, she joined volunteers on a bus to New Hampshire to knock on doors. She was 71 years old. She and another woman walked up to a house, knocked on the door and waited. A older man, most likely in his 70s too, opened the door and stood there with his arms crossed. When they explained their reason for being on his doorstep and held out an Obama leaflet, the man told them in no uncertain terms to get off his porch. Then he looked my mother in the eye and said, “You’re old enough to know better.” Mom’s friend had to tug on her sleeve to get her to retreat because, as my mother told me later, all she wanted to do was retort, “You’re old enough to know better!” But the friend didn’t like the menacing look of the man and I’m glad she won over my mother’s resistance.

It is because of my mother that I have volunteered for presidential elections throughout my life, donated, phone-banked, knocked on doors, worn the badges and the bumper stickers on my car. This is an election night where I miss her more than ever. She passed away in April after her long struggle with dementia—funny and feisty and loving to the end. If I ever mentioned Trump to her, she’d say “Don’t get me started.” I’ll talk to her tonight and imagine her beside me but of course it won’t be the same, not like in 2020, when we celebrated the Biden-Harris victory, fist bumping each other. I console myself that she is spared the knowledge of how close Donald Trump is once again to the White House.

Mom celebrating the Biden-Harris win with her favorite cocktail, a Cosmo.

Today, two days before what would have been her 88th birthday, I am channeling her spirit in gratitude for all these years of tutelage in the democratic process and the policies and values of the Democratic Party which I also hold dear. I imagine her thrilled to see Vice President Kamala Harris as our party’s candidate for the presidency. “It’s about time we had a woman in the White House,” she’d say. She would have loved Saturday’s Women’s March at Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C. with women bearing messages like “A woman’s place is in the White House,” and “Vote like your daughter’s life depends on it.” My mother voted like her daughter’s life depended on it, and I do the same for my two daughters.

My mother would have an unwelcome sense of deja vu that women are once again having to fight, just as she did decades ago, for reproductive freedom and for control over our own bodies. I see her dancing to Stevie Nicks’ powerful song “The Lighthouse” with her daughters and granddaughters, reminding women that we’re in this fight together and our lives hang in the balance.

And all the rights that you had yesterday
Are taken away
And now you're afraid
You should be afraid

Stevie’s invitation: “Don’t let them take your power.” Let’s all be the lighthouse.

Mom would be enraged at the anti-immigrant rhetoric from Trump and others in the Republican Party. A favorite political sticker of my Jewish mother, now part of my collection: “My people were refugees too.”

But all the cat memes? She’d be tickled pink (as in the pink pussycat hat she wore in the 2017 Women’s March) with the way Democrats and proud childless cat ladies everywhere (including Taylor Swift) have taken Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance’s outrageous comment and turned it into another way to rally people to the Democratic ticket.

Silly memes aside, this election is serious. Very serious. Since I gained my right to vote in 1978, no election has felt as fateful as this one, because we have never had the threat to our freedoms and to our Constitution that Donald Trump poses.

"Every vote matters. Your conscience matters. Every person matters,” I can hear my mother say, this woman who began speaking out about racism and prejudice in her teens.

I am my mother’s daughter, today more than ever. May love win over fear.

And now for an update about this newsletter: You may notice this week a beautiful new logo (thanks to my friend Louisa Wah at

Lily Pond

for helping me design it) and a new tagline for the “Living in 3D” newsletter:

Life lessons in embracing desire in every decade from a late-blooming woman in her 60s, still in the process of becoming. We thrive by planting our roots in all three dimensions at once: mind, body and spirit.

I’d like to briefly explain why I am making this pivot. While I have retained “Living in 3D,” the former subheadings of “divorce” and “dementia” are not as present as they once were. It has been over two years since I initiated my divorce and now my ex and I have an amicable relationship. We are friends, which is what we had both wanted and hoped for, and you can read about it here, “What does a good divorce look like?” There’s a lot more about how I navigated this late-in-life divorce in this collection of essays: “Divorce can be overwhelming: A compendium of articles and resources.”

And as it inevitably would, the dementia caregiving that came to define these past few years ended with my mother’s death—a peaceful one, which I describe in this essay, “I wish I could be like a bird in the sky.” For more about the lessons I’ve learned and support I found in the midst of caregiving, check out this body of work: “For caregivers, a compendium of resources to help you take care of yourself, too.”

As for “Destiny,” it remains present in my life, but these days I am less focused on trying to control it than allowing it to unfold. Other “Ds” like “desire,” “dreams,” and “discovery” are taking up residence in my mind, body and spirit. At 64, my life is expanding in new ways, informed but no longer contained by the past. I am so glad that you are along for the ride.

This is a safe space for honest conversation about how we can embrace desire in every decade. As a late-blooming woman in her 60s, I see this community as fertile ground for all of us to bloom: women at midlife, wise elders and younger generations. The soil in which I am planted is now richer than ever. In this sixth decade of life, I can look back, knowing that I have taken risks, loved and lost and grieved with my whole heart. I’ve grown in ways I never thought possible.

I am here to share those hard-won life lessons with you each week, offering insights and resources and the knowledge that we’re not alone in the process of still becoming our most authentic selves.

Now, at 64, I am preparing to leave a decade of life in Florida to embark on a new adventure: moving to Barcelona, Spain just in time for my 65th birthday in April. My daughters live in Barcelona and Paris. Europe calls to me. More on that decision and my plans for life in Spain in next week’s essay!

Here’s what I know now: I can only bloom when my roots are firmly planted in the three dimensions of mind, body and spirit.

I welcome your stories. Join our conversations in the comments with question prompts each week or email me at amysusanbrown@gmail.com. Another change: all subscribers will now be able to listen to my personal voice-overs of each essay. We’re all busy people and if this makes it easier for you to find time to enjoy what I write, I’m glad (and I love making the recordings). Thank you to every subscriber for supporting me in this newsletter endeavor I began a year ago. It is a writing space and community that I love and cherish and that is because of all of you. If you’re new here, welcome! Visit my Welcome page and check out this handy sitemap for 2023 and 2024 for an overview of all my essays to date.

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This week’s “Living in 3D” song is “Hold Space,” by Kevin Paris and Casey Kalmenson: “I will hold space for you to bloom…we’re all just walking each other home.”

LET’S CHAT! Are you a late bloomer? What desire is calling to you right now? What topics would you like to see me explore in this space?